A Frank Millionaire.
A unique address was once made before the Chicago City Club by Joseph Fels, a Philadelphia millionaire.
"I have made my money," he declared, "by robbing the people.
"Under present conditions no one can grow rich in a lifetime without robbing the people through a monopoly."
His firm, he said, was still robbing the people.
He spoke of his millions as "swag," and said that, now he has found his conscience, he is going to use this swag to do away with the accursed system that made it possible.
Mr. Fels is a firm believer in the single-tax theory, and holds that the adoption of the single tax on lands would prevent the wrongful amassing of wealth, which is the great sin of our times.
This is wild talk, of course. Not all, not even the majority, of the great business enterprises of the day are robbery, or anything like robbery.
That there are many grave injustices, however, in all forms of moneymaking is undoubted, and nothing is more cheering than to see a rich man joining with the poor man and the independent thinker in an effort to discover these wrongs and remedy them.
There is only one business rule that is not open to the charge of robbery, and that is the Golden Rule. When a business man can honestly say that his gains have come from the use of methods that he would gladly have all men apply in their dealings with himself, then that man need have no fear of the condemnation in which Mr. Fels included himself.
It is this extension of the Golden Rule from individual to social affairs that is the key-note of the great reform movements of modern times.
Cutting in.
The State Motor Vehicle Department of Connecticut has issued a review of its records of automobile collisions, and says that the commonest causes of them are cutting corners, cutting 'n ahead, and trying to pass from the rear in unsuitable places, such as on a curve or at the top of a hill. In all of these circumstances another automobile might very likely be approaching hidden from the view of the imprudent driver.
"Many drivers," says the review, "seem temperamentally unfitted to stay in the rear of any vehicle at all, or until a proper opportunity to pass is presented." In other words, they are temperamentally unfitted to run an automobile, for the driver of these swift machines must above everything else be patient and prudent.
Still more disastrous, however, is the result of "cutting in" on the immaterial highways of life. One salesman "cuts in" ahead of another, or a merchant "cuts in" ahead of his competitor, or a politician "cuts in" ahead of other legislators, and the mischief done is incalculable. Society, school, even the church, witness these shameful feats of "cutting in."
It is all most unchristian. It is all a violation of the command "in honor to prefer one another." It is all a bold denial of Christ's promise that the last shall be first. "Cutting in" is born of selfishness, and greed, and pride. "Cutting in" is one of the devil's arts. "Cut it out."
Jailed at Home.
Foggia, Italy, in the year 1898, contained a wealthy gentleman, a landowner, named Raimardo Pace. Mr. Pace had a servant, and also an irascible temper. One day the two, the servant and the temper, came in conflict, and the result was the murder of the servant.
Pace was tried, and condemned to ten years' imprisonment. He was not present at the trial. The police could not find him, and it was supposed that he had escaped, finding an asylum in a foreign land.
And now he has been discovered in his own house, where he has been all along!
He has attended himself to the little affair. He made a cell in his basement, appointed a servant to be his jailer, and had him bring him bread and water once a day. He did not stir from his narrow quarters.
He told the police, when they burst in upon his voluntary imprisonment, that after two years more of that life he intended to petition the king for his pardon.
But unfortunately for Mr. Pace, the law prefers to see to the execution of its sentences its own self. The eccentric gentleman's private arrangements will not be honored by the court. Mr. Pace must go to prison just like anyone else, and he must begin on his ten-years term as if he had not been in confinement a day.
That, whatever you may think about it, is the story the newspapers are telling. Believe it or not, you will believe the little lesson that the tale teaches me.
Many a man, many a woman, is jailed at home. There is no visible cell, but there is a very real one. The table may be heavy with good things to eat, but the real diet of the occupant of that house is bread and water. It is the house of the man or the woman that has no interest outside of his or her selfish life.
Pace comes, probably, from the Latin word for Peace. But it is a misnomer. There is no peace in such a house. It is a prison, the darkest of dungeons. There is no peace, says God, to the wicked. And the essence of wickedness is selfishness. Every selfish soul is its own jail.
Urbanity and Suburbanity.
Dr. R. F. Horton wrote for The Congregationalist, more than a decade ago, a very fetching little essay on urbanity and suburbanity. The two words suggest a pointed contrast. "Urbanity" comes from the Latin word for city. Polite comes from the Greek word for city. When people are crowded together, rough angles are worn off. Urbanity is one of the prime virtues of civilization.
On the contrary, suburbanity may ruin all this. The suburbanite tends to selfishness. His life is a grand rush, from bed to breakfast, from breakfast to the train, from the train to the office. Then back again. He has no time, or thinks he has none, for social amenities, for the little kindnesses that make home a blessing, for church life, for the common interests of his suburb. He lives essentially for himself, or at any rate by himself.
The suburbanite's problem is to become urbane. He must plan for leisure. He must cultivate serenity. He must practice unselfishness and love.
All this requires determination. It takes time. It may lose a little money, but it will gain what is worth all the wealth of the world.
For to be a suburbanite, in the sense described, is to lose one's own soul.
Auto Capacity.
Often I see automobiles, great, comfortable automobiles, whizzing along occupied solely by the chauffeur and a pig.
Of course the passenger is not always a pig. He or she may be on the way to pick up three or four passengers. There may be other good reasons, such as sickness, or reasonable haste, why the owner is all alone in the big auto.
But usually it is just plumb selfishness, The automobile-owner has forgotten old Mrs. Sanderson, confined to the house for sixteen long years.
And the Brewster sisters, too poor for even a street-car ride.
And the family of six jolly children in the Comstock house, no one of whom has yet had the felicity of an auto-ride.
And old Mr. Grant, whose acquaintance with local geography has not for ten years extended beyond a hobbling walk to the post-office.
And a whole lot of others.
I am not saying, mind you, that there are not many times when an auto-owner is justified fully in being by himself in his car. His mere desire to be by himself is often enough. I am only calling attention to the fact that some auto-owners are pigs.
Automobile manufacturers talk much about the carrying capacity of their cars. Auto capacity, however, is usually a matter of heart capacity.
Within Four Walls.
A rich woman—at least, people called her rich because she had a million dollars and more—died the other day, who had not been out of her house in twenty years. She lived alone. She did not even own a hat. She never had seen a trolley-car. She was not an invalid, and if she had chosen, could have gone out every day. But she did not care enough for anything outside her own four walls to cross the threshold for it.
Physically, that seems a strange way to live. But mentally there are plenty of people who never go out of the four walls of self. Nothing outside of their own feelings and desires is interesting to them. They stay shut in, by their own wills, to selfish isolation.
Christ came to take men out of themselves, to give them larger lives, full of love and unselfishness. Are we following Him out of the house of self into the wide air of His Kingdom?